Flip Flop Flu (part 2)

With the NHS straining under impressive levels of seasonal respiratory infection I decided to take a closer look at influenza and pneumonia

In part 1 of this series I produced a graph of crude mortality for influenza and pneumonia dating back to 1901. We observed the impact of coding changes during a trial period 1984 – 1991 along with implementation of a new system in 2001 that served to de-emphasise the role of respiratory disease by reducing numbers of deaths in official counts. I promis…